Regulate & Rewire: An Anxiety & Depression Podcast

Understanding Regulation – Why We Need This As Our Default State (Part 5)

• Amanda Armstrong • Season 1 • Episode 123

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In this episode of our series on nervous system states, we explore the ultimate goal: more regulation. Amanda breaks down the physiology and psychology of this "green zone" state and provides a rich toolkit for moving to make it your new normal as she compassionately discusses understanding what regulation truly is, why your system might resist it, and how to proactively create more moments of it.

*This episode serves as Part 5 in our "Different States Series"

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • What regulation feels like in your body and how it improves your overall health.
  • Why your nervous system might resist feeling calm, and how to gently work with that fear.
  • A toolkit of simple, proactive practices to help you cultivate more safety and ease in your daily life.
  • Why the true goal isn’t constant calm, but the flexibility to return to your regulated "home base" after stress.

3 Takeaways:

  1. Regulation is a state of internal safety, not just the absence of stress. It’s about presence, flexibility, and connection—not perfection or perpetual calm.
  2. You may have to learn how to stay in regulation. Especially if calm feels unfamiliar, savoring these moments is a skill you can practice. Regulation is a practice, not a destination.
  3. You don’t heal just by surviving less—you heal by living more. Regulation allows space for the joy, rest, creativity, intimacy, and meaning that make life rich.

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*Want me to talk about something specific on the podcast? Let me know HERE.


Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast

Email: amanda@riseaswe.com

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Amanda Armstrong  0:00  
Welcome to Regulate and Rewire an Anxiety and Depression Podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now, let's dive in. 

Amanda Armstrong  0:27  
Hey friend, welcome back. This is the fifth episode in our series on the different nervous system states. It also was going to be the last episode in this series, but I got a really special voice memo reply from someone on my team as they had listened to Part of this series that I'm actually going to share with you next week and do a little bit of a wrap up before we move on, but just a brief review. The past few episodes, we have talked about activation, freeze and shutdown. These are states that many of us know intimately, especially if we struggle with anxiety, depression, overwhelm, and today, we are going to talk about a state that is probably the goal state for many of us, for most of us, we are going to talk about the state that your nervous system actually wants to live in most of the Time, which is regulation. 

Amanda Armstrong  1:20  
But here's what's really interesting, for many people who have been chronically dysregulated, regulation can actually feel incredibly uncomfortable, especially at first, and being in a more regulated state, and the physiology and the psychology that we experience here of kind of letting our guard down can be something that sends a red flag up of, Oh, nope, remember, remember that last time you let your guard down, that thing happened. And so what's really tricky and interesting here is that, as we start to shift into regulation, regulation itself, that experience can feel unsafe. And this is something that I talked extensively about in episodes. I think it was 113 and 114 I'll touch briefly on that again here today. But if you want a deeper conversation around why regulation oftentimes doesn't feel good at first, or how to shift into having regulation feel like a safer experience for our system. Those two episodes are really great ones to check out. 

Amanda Armstrong  2:24  
But today we're going to similar to the past episodes in the series, talk about what regulation actually is, touch on why it might feel strange if you're not used to it, how to recognize your unique regulation signals, and most importantly, I think, how to cultivate and maintain these moments where we do feel ease, where we do have connection. We'll also talk about how regulation isn't a destination that you arrive at once and stay forever, but more it is a dynamic, flowing state. It is the state that you want to consistently return to. There will always be moments of activation, of freeze, of shutdown. Do we have enough anchors in this green zone of regulation that we're able to not get stuck in those other states of dysregulation? And then we'll also explore this through a parts lens as well. 

Amanda Armstrong  3:16  
All right, starting with what regulation is from a nervous system perspective. So the state of regulation happens when you have more cues of safety than danger. It is when your nervous system is in what we call a parasympathetic state, which I'll talk more about in a minute. According to something called polyvagal theory, it is when you have your ventral vagal complex online. So this is the newest part of our nervous system, evolutionarily speaking, and it is designed for connection creativity, what we call your social engagement state. So let's talk about some of the underlying physiology of this state, and why just why? Why? Why it is so valuable for us to find regulation, why it is so valuable for us in the long term of our lives, for our health, we need to be in states of regulation more often than we find ourselves in states of dysregulation or survival mode, not just for our mental health, but for our physical health as well. 

Amanda Armstrong  4:19  
So physiologically, when you're regulated, our heart rate is steady and flexible, so it speeds up when it's needed, and it slows down when you're at rest. Your breathing is natural and deep. You are participating in what we're calling diaphragmatic breathing, or natural breathing, without having to think about it. So that's when you take a deep inhale through your nose. You can feel it maybe in your ribs or your belly, and you exhale. So it's usually nasal breathing steady, not overly deep. You're not consciously taking a huge breath, but your everyday breath, each breath, is deep, is steady, is slow, and is through your nose. And when this. Happens when we take these diaphragmatic breaths, they automatically stimulate and activate your vagus nerve, and so with every breath you take, you're activating your vagus nerve, which improves your vagal tone, and something called heart rate variability. And we know that improved Heart Rate Variability has really positive correlations to overall health, to stress resiliency. It ripple effects. And so when we get stuck in these chronic stress states and our breathing becomes short and shallow, what we often see is a steep decline in vagal tone, heart rate variability, which can make us more susceptible to being stressed out easier, stressed out, longer, more chronic health conditions. So your breath, quality, the function of your breath, is huge when we're in this regulated state, and we can actually use and train our breath so that we can have more access to this state. Also when we're in this parasympathetic state, our digestive system is working well. So you actually feel hungry when you need food. You feel satisfied when you've eaten enough. Your digestion is happening at the proper pace, which means that you are absorbing better nutrients for your food. Your gut health is more optimally maintained and functioning here, when we're in a regulated state, your immune system functions optimally so your sleep is restorative. You have access to your full range of emotions without feeling overwhelmed by them. Your muscles are relaxed but still ready for action when needed. 

Amanda Armstrong  6:34  
And there is a strong, well documented link between anxiety, depression and other chronic illnesses, and all of that being deeply rooted in both nervous system dysregulation and some of these physiological imbalances that we've talked about. So, like, I kind of put a spoiler in I have decided that I, in the near future, I'm going to do a whole episode on this connection between chronic illness, anxiety and depression, because they are often treated like separate issues, but they are not. They often co occur. They interact and they exacerbate one another, and this is why becoming more regulated often isn't just a path to less anxiety or depression, but to optimizing all of your health. That is at the heart and the soul of what we do at regulated living and when we're in survival mode, the body systems designed to promote wellness, they're often turned off for the sake of prioritizing survival, and too much of this for too long causes problems, and that should be clear at this point in the series. 

Amanda Armstrong  7:48  
Now let's get a snapshot of the psychology that we experience in a regulated state, and then psychologically when we are regulated, it offers us the opportunity to be present in our body, in an experience. We have access to feeling curious instead of constantly hyper vigilant. We can be playful, creative, spontaneous. We can feel connected to ourselves, to others, to the environments. When we are rooted in a place of regulation, we have this mindset that like things are figureoutable. I might not know how, but I can figure it out so challenges feel manageable rather than overwhelming. You can make decisions without endless second guessing, because you have this sense of self. You have access to your wisdom, your intuition, to discernment. But what I want to make clear is that regulation is not a constant state of bliss or forced positivity. It is not about being perfectly calm all the time. It is not about being free of stress or negative emotions. It's definitely not about always feeling good regulated. People still feel sad, angry, scared, frustrated, they just don't get stuck in those emotions or overwhelmed by those emotions. And this is really important. It's important to understand that regulation is not about fixing yourself or never having hard days. It is about developing the capacity to move through life's challenges without losing your essential sense of self and safety. It is the ability to experience life with presence, flexibility, and again, a sense of self and internal safety and regulation happens when we have more cues of safety than danger. It's your nervous system saying, Hey, we're safe enough. We're safe enough that we can be here, we can be present with this, and just reiterating, for individuals who have had very real experiences where there were more cues of danger than safety, where it didn't feel safe to be here and to be fully online, there is going to be some resistance in your system to being in a regulated state. We. Is why healing includes not just learning how to reach regulation, but how to stay with it, how to savor it. 

Amanda Armstrong  10:06  
And I think that's where I want to take this conversation next. Is why it is important to savor our regulation, and it's because so many of us, especially, I mean, let's just call it. Call it out for what it is, those of you who found your way to a podcast like this, someone like me who cares enough to put the countless hours I have into creating and putting this out into the world, a lot of us have become really good at stress, really good at crisis management, really good at surviving and just getting through and so our real work is learning how to stay in and with the state that we are working so hard to reach. It's one thing to regulate. It is another thing entirely to trust in that regulation. And because our nervous system doesn't learn from intellectual insight, it learns through experience and repetition. So the more time you can spend in regulation, even for 10 seconds more, the more your system starts to believe, hey, this state is possible. It's safe to stay here. I can come back here again. And that is why the goal isn't just to have a moment of regulation, but can we have a moment of regulation? Can we acknowledge it? Can we savor it? Can we stay in regulation just a little bit longer to build more familiarity so our system is more apt to accessing it more frequently and for longer durations? 

Amanda Armstrong  11:36  
And a question we get asked early by a lot of our clients is like, how do I know? How do I know when I'm regulated? So that's a conversation I want to have briefly, is to help familiarize you with how to know when you are in states of regulation. And these can be really subtle at first, especially if you're used to chaos or intensity, you might miss them completely. But some common signs of regulation, again, all the things we talked about the physiology, the psychology, but you might notice a simple softening of your chest or your jaw, your shoulders might drop, your thoughts may slow down or become more spacious. You might feel like it's easier to take a deep breath. You find yourself present. You are just watching your kids at the park, or you're noticing a bird and you're able to smile because it's beautiful. You're in the moment. You're able to more easily connect with others, feel curious instead of defensive. 

Amanda Armstrong  12:34  
And in ifs or parts work, they have something called the 8c of self. And so through that modality, you can know that you are connected to your authentic self, your regulated self, when some of these characteristics are present. So the eight Cs are calmness, curiosity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, clarity and connectedness. So if you have access to any of those in any given moment, there's at least some anchor that you have in that regulated Green Zone state. Oftentimes people describe regulation as feeling like myself again, or feeling like I came home to my body, or I can be in my body. Others say it's just a gentle settling. Things just fall into place. And so I want to invite you throughout this week or this month to pay attention to micro moments throughout your day when you might have glimpses of regulation. It could be when you're petting your dog, watching the sunset, maybe you're laughing with a friend. Maybe it's a scalding hot shower that is a comfort place for me, or when you're cooking, these moments, while some of them might be brief or fleeting, they provide really important information about what regulation feels like for you, also the people, the places, the things, the activities in which your system has more cues of safety than danger, and what does it look like to try to cultivate to make a priority of bringing and inviting more of that into your life. 

Amanda Armstrong  14:13  
Now, before we wrap up, let's shift the conversation to talk more about different tools or intentional things that we can engage in to cultivate and maintain more regulation in our life. And I think the number one thing, the number one thing, is connection and CO regulation. The most powerful tool for regulation is safe. Connection with others. Your nervous system is designed to regulate through relationship. So when you are with someone who feels safe and is regulated themselves, your nervous system can literally sync up to theirs. So what can you do in your life to have more people where you know your nervous system and you know right you know right now you know the person in your life where when you're around them. Your system gets a little tense, you're a little more on edge, you're less you you're more guarded. And then my hope and my desire is that each and every one of you, whether this person is presently in your life or maybe it's a past person, can think about an experience with an individual, where, when you were with them, your shoulders dropped, your system exhaled. There was a moment of safety, and sometimes that has to do with the actual person. Sometimes it has to do with our own relational traumas. But can you find people places, pets, where they're it's easier, where it's easier for you to feel this sense of ease and connection? 

Amanda Armstrong  15:36  
Another thing that helps to bring our parasympathetic state online is creativity is through play. What does that look like for you? We all have different definitions of play. Some of us play through artwork. Some of us play through sports. Some of us play through collecting stamps. It doesn't matter through cooking, through gardening, through singing, through dancing. The key is to do things for the joy of doing them, not for productivity, not for performance. Play is so powerful. How can you be a little bit more playful throughout your life? Silly, dancing in the kitchen while you're doing your dishes, making a funny face. How can we invite creativity and play into our life? Movement? Movement is another thing that our system needs. Our bodies are designed to move. The healthy, most regulated version of your brain and your nervous system lives in a body in motion. If you don't know where to start and you don't already have a habit of getting outside and going for a daily walk, going for a daily walk. Start, there. Start, start. 

Amanda Armstrong  16:53  
The other things to consider in your life could be routine, predictability, proactively, practicing some regulatory tools or practices sensory awareness, making sure your environments don't have too much or an overwhelming amount of sensory input. Sometimes you just need to throw on some noise canceling headphones. What we want to do is to feel into the people, the places, the experiences in our life where we have more ease. 

Amanda Armstrong  17:21  
So in summary, if you want regulation to become more of your norm, things that can help are stable rhythms. Your body loves routines, meals, movement, rest, supportive environments, spaces that do not constantly over stimulate you, spaces and places where you can find safety, functional health support. When your physiology is stable, your mind can be too. How can you optimize your physical health? We need to have safe and aligned relationships people who feel safe, steady and connected. And this is all about practice over perfection. Staying regulated is not about never getting thrown off. It is about knowing that you have this place to return to, and knowing the things that help you return there. 

Amanda Armstrong  18:04  
These are all things that we support our clients with inside our regulated living programs. These are all things that need to be discussed when taking a whole human, whole life approach to anxiety and depression, we do not heal by escaping stress forever. We heal by becoming more resilient and rooted in our sense of safety, so that life doesn't always knock us out of ourselves, out of our safety, we build resilience for the inevitable heaviness and hardship that comes with being a pesky human in a pesky human world, the goal is not to live in regulation 100% of the time. You will never live 100% of the time in that green zone. That's not realistic. That's not even healthy. A healthy nervous system moves fluidly between states as needed. You might feel activated when facing real challenges. You might freeze when you need to pause and assess you might even shut down briefly when you do go through big grief or overwhelming experiences, and then you return to regulation. The difference between healthy and unhealthy patterns is flexibility and choice. Instead of getting stuck in one state chronically, you develop the ability to move through states and return to regulation as your home base, that is what you need. Our nervous system is meant to be in a state of regulation 80% of the time. And then we briefly, when appropriate, when necessary, visit activation, freeze or shutdown. And yet, for so many of us, that percentage of 8020 is reversed survival mode to regulation. And this is the this is the work. Is how one day, one month, one year at a time, we can spend just 1% 2% 5% 10% more time anchored in regulation. And that 80. It slowly becomes the foundation from which you live your life through, from which you can handle life stressors without losing your essential sense of self and safety. 

Amanda Armstrong  20:11  
So what this comes down to are three takeaways from today. 

Amanda Armstrong  20:14  
Number one, regulation is a state of internal safety, not just the absence of stress. It is about presence, flexibility and connection. 

Amanda Armstrong  20:24  
Number two, you may have to learn how to stay in regulation. You may have to practice staying in regulation, especially if calm feels unfamiliar or triggering for you. Regulation is a practice, not some destination that you get to. 

Amanda Armstrong  20:41  
And number three, you do not heal just by surviving less. You heal by living more. I'm going to say that again, healing isn't about surviving less, it's about living more. Regulation allows space in your life for joy and rest, creativity, intimacy and meaning and the things that make life so rich, you get one go. We all get one go at these 100 years. We owe it to ourselves to work to create space for joy and rest and creativity and intimacy and meaning and because of just the unfair hands that we've been dealt for some of us, that's harder than for others, and your life deserves those anyways. 

Amanda Armstrong  21:31  
So please remember this work takes time, it takes patience, and it often takes support from others. You do not have to do it perfectly. You do not have to do it alone. Your nervous system has carried you through so much. A nervous system capable of carrying you through what it has is also a nervous system that is capable and has the capacity to heal and grow and find new patterns, trust in your body's wisdom, in your capacity to heal and change. And if you're looking for support, I'm here. I would love to hear from you, and until next week, when we do a little reflection and wrap up on this series, I am sending so much hope and healing your way. 

Amanda Armstrong  22:12  
Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space, or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes, again, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai